Data may be centrally managed, yet user dependent. For example, an end user accessing the centrally managed data via a client in a client/server network benefits from additions, deletions, and modifications to the centrally managed data. On the other hand, the end user may have a need to customize the data on a particular level, for example, a local level. This customized data ideally should survive changes to the corresponding centrally managed data. Management of the data becomes more complicated if the management is distributed, for example, along an organizational hierarchy. Moreover, integrating data from different storage technologies presents additional challenges even if platform independence for access to the data exists. Additionally, the data management system should be highly scalable so that both small and massive amounts of data may be managed and accessed in accordance with the data management system.
There are several data access technologies, such as flat files, registries, central database systems, and distributed database management systems, for example, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Domain Name Service (DNS), but these technologies do not solve the basic problem of providing for central administration of the data while at the same time allowing for modification of the data at another level, for example, a local (end user) level. Moreover, these technologies do not provide for the ability to merge together data that may be distributed over multiple levels. In particular, these technologies do not provide for the ability to modify fields of a single record at separate layers in the data management system and merge the fields into a single record accessible at a particular layer in the system.